


Immortal Oops

by Alinora



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5999092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alinora/pseuds/Alinora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strong>Warnings:</strong> Generally follows canon until the Season 3 episode 'The Zeppo', except with no sleeping with Faith. Errors from canon based on the fact it's been a while since I watched the first three seasons of Buffy and the fact that this is a bit AU. A bit of Willow bashing, a bit of Buffy bashing. Mentions of past mind control, minor torture and friendship betrayal.</p>
<p><strong>Summary:</strong> Angel's back from Hell and Buffy still can't keep her hands (or lips) off him. Knowing how badly that turned out the first time, the male half of the Scoobies decide something needs to be done. They researched, they planned, and they agreed on a plan of attack. But what is that saying about no plan surviving first contact with the enemy? Or was that with friends?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immortal Oops

“I’m not sure this is a wise course of action. We should consult with the Council, see what…”

Xander looked up from where he was copying a diagram onto the floor. “Wesley, we have researched this thoroughly. You’ve read the results; can you honestly say that you think we’re wrong? And really, the Council? They haven’t really shown a lot of concern for any of us before now and they’re not generally interested in helping vampires – it’s against their religion or something.”

Xander figures the snort he heard from Giles would’ve been accompanied by an eye roll if he didn’t consider himself too mature for that. “Yes, well I don’t think I’d put it quite like that, but Xander is quite correct in that they would likely not agree with the actions we have planned.”

When it looked like Wesley was going to begin protesting again, Giles glared him into submission before pushing his glasses up his nose. “Our research is sound and it is best for all involved that we go through with it as planned tonight. The moon is in the proper alignment and all the preparations have been completed successfully. We can begin this evening, just after sunset. I suggest you take the time until then to calm yourself as, once we begin, it would be highly disastrous for us to be disturbed.”

***~*~***

The sweat dripping down his face and slicking his hands was an appreciated distraction from the chanting he could hear Giles doing from somewhere behind him. He couldn’t afford to be too distracted though as he would soon need to take back over in the next phase of the spell. He glanced over at Oz, sitting to his right, and was slightly gratified to see that he too was sweating, but still seemed to be holding up okay. He then looked over at the third person in their huddle within the protecting circle he’d helped Giles construct earlier that afternoon.

Angel, being a vampire, didn’t really sweat, but he did look like he had a headache – or he was constipated, though the whole being a vampire generally precluded that as well – based on the lines of tension showing on his forehead. The three of them were sitting cross-legged on the floor of Giles’ living room, considered a safer location than the library to do a spell based on not being directly located over the Hellmouth which they decided would directly, and adversely, affect the spell they were casting. And since the spell was to permanently allow Angel’s soul control over the demon’s body, it was pretty important for there to be no complications. Thus doing the spell at Giles’ – though they’d discussed leaving town as well – as well as the protecting circle the three were sitting in and the plans they’d made to keep everyone else away from them for the evening.

The girls, Willow and Buffy, were having a girls’ night in. There had been discussions of pizza, ice cream and 80’s movies. Since the end of Xander and Cordy’s relationship, her attendance was spotty anyway and there was no reason to expect she would suddenly have the urge to visit Giles. As Buffy had the night off, Faith had been asked to patrol, though she was still planning to come by after to report to Giles and Wesley about how things went. They were hoping to be done by that point, though Wesley, who was keeping guard and not actively participating, could be available to help her out if something came up or she returned earlier than expected.

Xander tensed a bit when he felt Oz’s fingers clench tighter around his hand briefly and he pulled his attention back to the spell long enough to figure out that he had just a bit longer before he had to take over again. As primary in the spell his hands were both facing upright holding Oz’s to the right and Angel’s to the left. As Oz was his second he was left hand down and right hand up as he gripped Angel’s hand to his right. As Angel was receiving from them in the spell, his hands were oriented downwards as he gripped their hands in a firm grip.

He felt Oz falter again as Giles began the next repetition of the chant and he smoothly rejoined the link to allow Oz a chance to take a break.

It was an odd feeling. He’d been working with Oz for almost a year on his control of the werewolf he shared his body with, fully incorporating it into himself. He himself had had to learn after being possessed by the Hyena, then the soldier, and to deal with the left over urges from being exposed to the fish DNA. While the possessions were cleared, the abilities and influences were still there and he had known he needed to find a way to bring them all together in a harmonious way. His hard won knowledge had been gratefully accepted by Oz and they were now hoping it could help Angel.

He wouldn’t be so concerned if it weren’t for the fact that Buffy couldn’t seem to remember that her being involved with Angel was what caused all the problems before with Angelus. Though Xander privately thought her sending him to Hell had likely killed off the ability for her to make him completely happy, just in case there were other things that could break it, he’d suggested that they should find a way to lock the curse in. They’d been searching since they’d found out Angel was back and, after two months of researching in between dealing with other issues that came up, they found the spell they were currently in the middle of.

Xander smoothly took over from Oz, working to basically hard code the soul’s control of the body while incorporating the strengths of the demon. It wasn’t a matter of chaining Angelus up within the body, but merging them together while keeping the Angel part of the personality in control. In the end it would no longer be the soul possessing the demon, but a single entity. That way, Angel could be as happy as he wants because there would be nothing to set free.

He wasn’t sure how Oz was visualizing what they were doing, probably something to do with playing music and incorporating various instruments into a cohesive arrangement, but to Xander it was a lot like weaving. Like taking those woven potholders you’d make in when you were a kid and growing them by a couple hundred percent. And there was no real loom to work on, or at least not a nice normal square or rectangular one. No, the one he had was angular, odd bits pointing out in weird places and the colors he had to work with were strange, but maybe to be expected considering he was trying to combine a human soul with the body of a vampiric demon.

Things were actually looking pretty good though. Depending on how much progress he could make while Oz recovered, they should be able to finish things in the near future. He got to work shifting strands in ways that felt right to him, keeping an eye on the overall pattern and backtracking a few times when he could tell he wasn’t getting it correct. Where it was done, things began to smooth over, individual threads becoming a solid surface and hardening. He could tell that Oz had rejoined as things were moving faster now, filling in around him as he worked to finish building the new Angel.

Not that he’d be really ‘new’ any more than he or Oz had changed when they’d come to terms with their own additions. He’d just be more himself, no doubting his abilities or not trusting himself to do what was right. He’d been living for many years hating who he was and what he’d done, even if it hadn’t really been him. Once they were done Angel would hopefully be able to accept all the parts of himself and no longer ignore the abilities and benefits he received from being a demon.

Finally finished, Xander could sense Oz near him and together they slotted the completed piece into the rest of the puzzle they’d been working on for hours now. They first time they’d finished and found they had another part to do, Xander’d felt like breaking down into manly tears, though he’d handled it better the next couple times. This was the seventh piece though and he was really hoping it was finally done. This time as the piece was incorporated, the whole thing morphed until an image of Angel was standing before them. Familiar, yet not. This one had a similar expression to the Angel they’d met over a year ago, but with a hint of the confidence portrayed by the Angelus version. He stood taller and seemed more confident, but didn’t have the glint of madness in his eyes that he’d seen so much during the period Angelus was rampaging around Sunnydale.

Xander looked to his right and for the first time in this space he could see Oz standing beside him. There was almost a shadow of a wolf behind him and he wondered what Oz saw in him in this place. He held out his hand, palm up, and firmly grasped Oz’s. Together they both reached out to the image of Angel in front of them and held out their hands, mirroring what their physical bodies were doing in the real world.

“Okay, Angel, time to wake. Take our hands and let us wake in reality.” Xander tried to stay calm while they waited for Angel to react. This was the critical moment as, if they hadn’t done things exactly right, the new construct could be denied and they might have even broken Angel’s hold over the demon which would leave them stuck on the wrong side of a protective circle with a really pissed off vampire.

Slowly the 2 dimensional image began to fill out, until eventually Angel was standing in front of them. He gave them a nod before reaching out to take their hands.

At that, everything faded away and when Xander opened his eyes this time he was once again looking at Giles’ living room and he could see Angel and Oz both aware across from him.

Angel was looking a bit more pensive than it would seem he should, being released from dealing with the possibility of losing his soul again and going on another killing spree.

“What’s up? You don’t look happy. The spell was successful…”

“I am happy, but something still feels off to me. Can you sense it?”

Xander looked over at Oz, who shook his head no before stopping abruptly. He cocked his head to the side in a listening pose and at that point, Xander began to feel something too.

“What seems to be the problem?” Giles and Wesley had come closer, confused as to why they weren’t ending the connection so they could get up and leaving the circle.

“Something’s coming,” Xander started saying when Angel suddenly tensed up and started screaming.

“Uh oh,” Oz said before he and Xander began screaming as well.

***~*~***

Xander found himself back in the mindscape he’d been working in over the past couple of hours, but this time it was wilder, no longer the sterile environment where he’d woven together the parts of Angel.

“Xander!”

He turned to see a slightly furrier than normal Oz. “Where’s Angel? What’s going on?”

“I haven’t found him yet, but I think we need to. I think he’s under attack.”

“I think we’re all under attack. I remember the pain from before we wound up here.”

“Yes, but I think we’re under attack because he is, because we’re still attached.”

“We hadn’t closed out the spell and broken the circle,” Xander nodded in agreement. “You’re right. Any idea where he is?” He could feel his senses sharpening as he turned his mind to finding Angel.

“I’ve just checked back that way a bit, but I think I can hear something over there.” He pointed away to the left and, focusing his hearing as well, Xander caught a faint sound of what could be screaming from there too.

“Okay, let’s head.”

They took off, running easily through a landscape that slowly morphed into a cityscape. The majority of it looked like Sunnydale, though one completely devoid of people. Every once and a while though they’d come across an area that brought to mind what he imagined Ireland must’ve looked like a couple hundred years ago. He had a feeling that wasn’t a good sign.

“Hold up, I can’t hear anything anymore, can you?” Xander reached out, softly gripping Oz’s arm to stop him while he looked around at where they were. Oz’s senses were sharper than his due to the skills he had as a werewolf. While Xander’s hyena enhanced ones weren’t bad, the hyena had been a possession originally – he’d never actually become one – so they couldn’t match what a werewolf was capable of. The soldier though had additional skills that he could depend on to try to analyze where Angel could be, if there were even any logic to it.

He figured, now that they were in ‘Sunnydale’, that Angel would be at home, the most secure place he could be to defend against whatever was attacking him. Xander could still feel shocks of pain running through his body, more noticeable now that they’d stopped moving, and could only imagine that as the focus of the spell, Angel was getting it much worse. They were pretty much center of town now and if they headed off to the left it would take them to the apartment where Angel’d lived when they first met him. Heading right would take them towards the outer part of town where the Mansion he’d lived in as Angelus was, but also where he’d stayed since his return from hell. So both were associated with Angel but also Angelus as he’d been in the apartment when he’d lost his soul originally.

“I think I hear something from that way,” Oz finally said, pointing right, “I also feel a tug from there, maybe from the connection?”

Xander paused for a minute, trying to get past the pain of his body and focus on what might be causing it. “You’re right, now that I know to look for it, I feel it too. I think he’s at the mansion.”

Oz only nodded and the two started running again, faster than before, feeling the need to get there as soon as possible now that they had a firm destination.

The mansion, when they finally arrived, was surrounded by what almost appeared to be a pulsing force field. They could also hear moaning coming from inside, so they apparently had found the right place. Despite the force field looking shield around the house, Xander had no problem pushing through the soft jelly-like consistency to enter, followed closely by Oz.

They found Angel in the room that had previously held Acathla. He was shifting back and forth between his human and demonic visage, body covered in lightning.

“That’s not good,” was Oz’s rather understated commentary.

“No, it looks like someone’s trying to remove the soul, release Angelus.” He had a moment of complete panic at the thought of dealing with Angelus on top of all the work they’d done to make sure this couldn’t happen. Then the panic cleared and he remembered all the work they’d done to make sure this couldn’t happen.

“The spell hasn’t been closed yet, we can help with this!” He rushed forward until he was standing in front and slightly to the right of Angel and felt Oz join him, completing the triangle again. He held his hands out yet again, palms up, offering his help. He felt Oz take his hand on the one side and offer his hand as well, but it didn’t appear that Angel had noticed them there, too caught up in his struggle.

“Angel. Angel!” He continued to flicker between the human and demonic visage and it was frightening to see the demonic one lasting longer and longer, though the human face was still predominant. “Angel! Hey, Deadboy!”

Finally Angel appeared to notice them there. “Xander… Oz… you need… to run. I’m not sure… how long I… can hold this off.”

“For one who seeks to be whole, we offer help and guidance. Do you accept it?” He didn’t think it would matter for this that they were already in the mindscape; they just had to get Angel to let them help.

He could see Angel was about to turn them down, do the noble thing and tell them to save themselves, not recognizing that this WAS to save themselves. “I said ‘Do you accept?’”

Angel flinched as his body was engulfed in lightning again before forcing himself upright and reaching out to take their hands. “I accept.”

The lightning kinda hurt, Xander decided. It certainly enhanced the shooting pains he’d already been feeling in a very unfun kind of way. But with the connection he could now feel the influence that was trying to tear apart their earlier work. Once again he was in a mindscape, but as he’d already been in what he thought was Angel’s mindscape, he wasn’t sure what that meant for where he was now.

Whatever it was, he could see something that looked like Angel, but not a solid version of him. He appeared made up of all the woven threads he’d put together before, but it was being picked at by strands of lightning and he was disturbed to see how frayed some areas already looked.

Xander moved forward to try to help, not sure if simply blocking the lightning would be enough or if there was some way to actually help fix the areas that were damaged. He made his way towards the worst of the damage in the chest area, flinching at the pain every time he took one of the bolts aiming at Angel. He pushed the pain away so he could focus on healing the damage in front of him while Oz moved around to do the same from the back.

The longer he worked the more odd things became. There were periods of time when the mindscape would fade and he’d see different places, like scenes from a movie, briefly before he’d be back to what he was doing. The scenes got longer as time went on until he realized that he was seeing scenes from Angel’s life, when he was still Liam and human. Eventually he began seeing more modern scenes and realized that Oz’s life was now playing in his own personal movie theater. He refused to let himself be distracted by the thought that the others might be watching his disaster of a life play out in Technicolor as well and kept on with what he was doing.

Angel was looking better and it seemed the lightning attacks were lessening as well. He felt like his back should be a mass of bleeding cuts from the pain he was in but a quick reach back showed that there didn’t appear to be any real damage, at least not physically. He was exhausted as well and appreciated the chance to take a break. Angel also looked like he was about to fall over, but was at least completely solid again and back to being a real person. Oz’s normal expression was pretty non-expressive, but even he was showing signs of being near the end.

“So, are we done yet?” Oz swayed slightly, reaching out a hand to brace himself on Angel, moving only slightly so the shorter man could more easily talk to Xander while still doing his best to protect Angel’s back.

“God, I hope so. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”

“I don’t think it’s over yet.” Angel’s voice was faint and he too was swaying a bit with exhaustion so Xander moved closer, reaching out to brace Angel and himself as he was feeling none too stable either. “We’d be back outside again if so.”

“We re-opened the circle. We have to close it to return to our own bodies and leave the mindscape.”

Angel shook his head, “we finished the spell already. Opening the circle ourselves is just good practice and safer for anyone around. Giles and Wesley can break the circle from their side as well, though we do have to disengage on this end to safely leave the mindscape.”

Xander looked at him suspiciously, “I thought you didn’t know much about magic? Where are you getting that from, the mindscape part; I do remember reading about the circle now.” Even as he asked though, he could almost remember hearing someone talking about how spells worked involving the mindscape.

“I might not do much with magic, but Dru… was always fascinated. When she was lucid, she would do research and when she wasn’t she’d tell me about it. I wasn’t really interested, but I would listen as she’d often give me important information among the craziness.”

Xander figure that the fact that Angel was saying ‘I’ to refer to a period of time when Angelus was in control was a good sign. He hadn’t always been that accepting before, often verbally separating himself from things done before as Angelus.

He nodded in acceptance of Angel’s comment. “Okay, so do you think that there’s more attacks coming or do we just need to close things out again so we can get out of here?”

“I… I don’t know. I still feel something in the air, which makes me thing we haven’t quite finished with this, but I could be wrong. I think we should close out the circle though so you two are out of here. There’s no need for the two of you to get caught by whatever might be still coming.”

Xander snorted. “That’s very noble of you, but if we hadn’t been here, we may now be dealing with Angelus, so forgive me if I’m not going to automatically agree to jump ship on you.” He paused for a minute to take a deep breath; exhaustion was beginning to catch up with him, now that the adrenalin was gone. He felt someone grab his arm as his vision went grey for a moment.

“Okay, I agree that we need to do something. It’s obvious that we’re all about to pass out. I think we should get out of here. At least back in our own bodies, Giles and Wesley can help us if there are more problems. If you guys are anywhere close to feeling like me you’re about to drop. We need a break. We took care of whatever was going on now, but if there’s an additional attack coming, we need to be better prepared.”

They both considered for a bit before slowly moving around, back into position again, their linking hands being needed to close out the connection as well as a way to support each other in staying upright.

“Let us join our hands and wake in reality.”

The mindscape faded and Xander felt a moment of disorientation before he was able to open his eyes again. He was still gripping Oz and Angel’s hands and they were all swaying a bit in place.

“Xander! Are you alright, what happened? Was there a problem with the spell?” Giles and Wesley were right up beside the edge of the circle.

“There was an attack… trying to free Angelus… we were able to fight it off… exhausted…”

“Well, that’s understandable. We shall have to look into who would want Angelus back. Everything else is fine though?”

“Yes… we’re all… fine. Just… need to… sleep… for a… while. Like the next… week.”

“What he said.” Oz agreed while Angel just nodded.

“Okay then,” Giles said standing up again, “let me break the circle and we’ll see about letting you get to that while Wesley and I do some research.” He was just turning away when there was a flash of bright light within the circle and what felt like an explosion that knocked them all to the floor.

***~*~***

Rupert had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, but he figured it couldn’t be for too long based on how little the clock appeared to have changed. Wesley was just beginning to move and they were lucky neither of them had hit anything when they’d been thrown. Luckily they’d shifted all the living room furniture to the walls earlier that day to clear enough room to construct the protective circle needed for the spell they were going to do.

With that he turned to look at the three most intimately involved in the spell. They’d been blown backwards from where they had been sitting and had crossed over, thus breaking, the line of the protective circle.

He rushed over to them, dropping down beside Xander. “Xander?” He restrained himself from shaking him to try to wake him, but he did reach out to check that there was still a pulse, not trusting the slight rise and fall of his chest to mean he was okay.

There was a moan from behind him, heralding that Wesley had finally regained consciousness. “Mr. Giles, what happened? Did the spell… malfunction? I thought it was rash to-“

“The spell didn’t ‘malfunction’; they’d completed it before something else happened, another spell perhaps. I don’t know if there was a third spell that caused the blast, or if it was a follow up on the previous one.”

Rupert moved to check on Oz, confirming that he too was simply unconscious but still breathing. He glanced over at Angel but other than seeing that there was still a body and not a pile of dust, had to trust that he was like the others and simply unconscious.

“Should we not try to wake them? We won’t know if they’re alright until then.”

“Let’s give them a couple minutes. They were exhausted before being knocked unconscious so it might take them a bit longer to wake. If they aren’t awake soon, we’ll need to take them to someone for examining. The spell may have injured them in some way and without knowing more we could harm them trying to wake them.”

“But…”

Rupert ignored Wesley’s protests as he left the room to hunt down the contact information for a healer he knew of just outside the city limits that treated… all types of… people. They were also very well versed in dealing with spell damage, which he hoped wouldn’t be needed now, but all things considered he felt they would be the best option. Besides, it wasn’t like they could take Angel to the hospital, even in Sunnydale.

After retrieving the name and number, he returned to the living room to see Wesley making laps around the outside edge of the room, apparently mumbling to himself about something. While they’d made great progress with acclimating him to the reality of life in Sunnydale and the things that happened when you spent most of your time around an active slayer, he still had moments where he simply couldn’t seem to process what was going on around him and tried to fall back on his totally-not-realistic Watcher training. Rupert figured he’d have to warn him about the healer before they went as he couldn’t see him taking a demon healer at all well.

Leaving Wesley to his mumbling, Rupert dialed the contact number he’d been given and had used to consult a couple times in the past. “Yes, I apologize for calling so late, but may I speak with Hadrin please? It’s a bit of an emergency… Thank you, yes, I’ll hold.” It was only a matter of seconds before the phone was picked up again. “Hadrin? Yes, it’s Rupert Giles from Sunnydale. We spoke a week or so ago about a spell our group here were attempting… yes, it was tonight… well, that’s rather what I was calling you about. The spell itself went well and seems to have been completely successful, but before it was closed out we believe another spell targeting one of the three participants, Angel, the primary focus, hit the three of them. They were… unresponsive again for approximately an hour then, similar to how they were during the original spell, but came out of it apparently just fine, though all were exhausted. We were just about to break the circle and remove them so they could rest, when there was a bright flash of light and a bit of an explosion. How can you have a bit of an explosion? Well, as there’s no damage to the room but we were all knocked unconscious, I’m labeling it as a bit of an explosion. Can we get back to the point that while I and my co-worker have woken with no real damage, the other three are still unconscious and we’re not sure if they’re okay?” Rupert stopped and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.

“I apologize, I’m quite concerned that they haven’t woken yet and we still have no idea what has been cast on them or by whom. I was hoping we could bring them to you tonight to see what you can figure out… That would be wonderful! I will warn you that I will be bringing Faith and my co-worker, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I will explain the situation to them before they arrive and they will be on their best behavior while there. Thank you again. We should be there within the hour.”

“I am always on my best behavior, even when sorely tested!”

Rupert refrained from rolling his eyes by a serious force of will and removed his glasses to rub his face. Putting them back on, he turned to face Wesley, who had apparently stopped obsessively doing laps of his living room and had been straightening his bookshelves. He made a note to check later that he hadn’t moved any as he had a very precise way of organizing them.

“Yes, I’m sure you are, but you are not always at your best when confronted with things that conflict with your Watcher training, which this will. Aht!” he cut him off before Wesley had a chance to protest. “Faith will be back soon and I’ll explain then. Then we will need to move these three out to Oz’s van so they can be taken to see Hadrin. If anyone can figure out what has happened it will be… him. Now, I suggest that you relax until Faith arrives and practice your best behavior for later.”

He went to get Oz’s keys from where he’d left them before they’d begun and shoved them into a pocket while going to collect the notes they’d made on the spell they were using. He really didn’t think the issue was with what they had done, but that’s not to say that it couldn’t be an influence on what happened later. It was best to be sure and have all their research with him. He couldn’t think of anything else that might be needed so settled down on the couch, attempting to read a bit of the next chapter in the book he’d been reading, but he found himself staring at the same lines over and over again while constantly checking the time and trying not to stare at the three men currently sprawled across his floor.

Both he and Wesley jumped when the knock they’d been waiting for finally came. Before they could pull themselves together, Faith had let herself in.

“All quiet tonight, boss men. I did a sweep through town, through the five most active cemeteries and swung up past the university. One or two fledges, but nothing else… why do you have three men passed out on your floor? Just what kind of party did you want to keep me away from tonight?” The expected leer was on her face, though he could also see the fear and confusion.

“No problems then with your patrol? Good. I’m sure Wesley will be glad to take down all the details later so we can add it to the information we’ve been collecting. Well, we’ve had a bit more excitement here with a spell we were attempting and your help is needed. We need to get them to a healer to be checked out and moving them on our own would be difficult.”

“Why didn’t you just call B and Red? They’re all buddy buddy, surely they’d be wanting to help out? Not that I won’t help, but she’s a bit possessive of Angel. She don’t like to share.”

“While Buffy would be helpful, she’s less than rational at times when it comes to him and he already stated that she wasn’t to know about what we were doing tonight. I would appreciate your assistance.”

“Okay then, what’s the plan?”

“There’s a healer I know just outside town that I’ve already spoken to and who has agreed to see them. He’s… not human, so I need the two of you to be aware of that going in so there’s no confusion. He is not evil or in need of slaying. What he is, is a talented healer who will hopefully be able to help us figure out what has happened to these three and why they’re not waking. I would like us to carry them out to Oz’s van and use that to transport them to him. Are the two of you okay with that plan, or shall we discuss it a bit more?” He could feel a headache coming on, partly from being exhausted and also from trying not to start yelling at everyone. He tried taking another deep breath. He’d either be well oxygenated or he’d calm himself down a bit.

Fortunately that seemed to be the end of discussion for a while and they were able to get everyone moved to the van and headed off to the healer’s.

As Hadrin’s clients weren’t generally normal humans, his hours tended to be non-standard, but it was late enough in the evening that they arrived in the lull before the final dawn rush began. So when they arrived, there was only a lone figure sitting in a corner, looking rather blue, though Rupert tended to believe that was their natural skin tone and not the reason for their visit.

“Ah, Mr. Giles, a pleasure to meet you in person finally, though I’m sorry it is under less than ideal circumstances.” Hadrin was short, only about five feet tall, and seemed to be at least partially scaled, though was otherwise humanoid in appearance. “If you could bring your young men in to the treatment room, I can take a look. Hopefully it’s nothing serious.”

“I brought notes on what we were working on tonight, though you know a bit from our previous consultation. If you’d like to review those while we bring them in?”

“That would be fine. Take them down the hall, second room on the left. It’s already set up. I’ll meet you all there.” He took the papers from Giles and headed off while they returned to the van to collect the patients.

The room they took them to had three beds set up waiting and a number of chairs. As each man was placed on a bed, figures inscribed on it started to glow. While some were the same for all three, not all were identical and Xander showed the most.

Rupert and Wesley were consulting over them when Hadrin returned. He stopped upon entering the room and seeing the glowing beds. “Well, that is a bit unexpected and could be a problem.”

“How so? Some of these look vaguely familiar, but I admit I can’t read them.”

“Each of those figures is a diagnostic ward. They are a quick and easy way to get a summary of what problems I may be dealing with. In the case of these three, there are some odd combinations that I’ll need to look into as they aren’t making any sense yet, but there are a number of figures representing controlling and influencing charms, which is troubling. And…” he paused, walking forward to poke at a couple things. “There’s still some connection between the three, though, once again, I’m not sure how as it’s not something I’ve seen before. I think I’m going to have to start removing the layers of spells on each of them and see if that clears things up enough to figure out what happened to them earlier. I hope you’re all prepared for a wait as this is going to take a while.”

***~*~***

His first thought was that his bed felt harder than normal. His second one was to wonder what he’d been up to the night before as he felt like crap. The third one was around why Giles would be in his bedroom and that thought had him startling to complete awareness immediately only to find that he wasn’t in his bedroom at all and had been, in fact, sleeping with quite a few people… in a manner of speaking.

“Xander, don’t try to get up yet. How are you feeling?”

He groaned. “Like I’ve spent a really bad night out on patrol playing bait for Buffy. What happened?”

“Do you not remember anything about… before?”

Xander started to respond with a ‘duh!’ when he stopped to consider the question. Slowly images started to come back to him, though they were jumbled up with all sorts of other information so it was hard to pick out what the actual memory was. “I think I remember a spell? Yes, Angel’s spell, we were doing the spell for Angel and something happened. We were attacked… maybe? That part gets odd and confused and I don’t think it’s all because I feel horrible. Did something happen?” He finally looks around the room more closely and sees Oz and Angel laid out on similar beds though they appear to be glowing. He craned his head around to look at his own and could see that his was glowing as well.

“Whoa! What’s up with the freaky bed? And where am I?”

“If possible, let’s hold off on the… bed part of the explanation until the other two awaken as what it means will affect them too. As far as where you are, you’re at a healer’s clinic that we brought you to after the second spell hit, what you’re remembering as an attack. Faith and Wesley helped me get the three of you here and have checked in a couple times, but they’re currently back in Sunnydale attempting to placate Buffy and Willow about the absence of the three of you while we were waiting for you to wake up. Luckily it’s only been about a day and they’ve been easily distracted. So far. Hopefully the other two will wake soon and we can discuss future plans after Hadrin, the healer, explains what happened.”

“Fine. I’ll just lie here and obsess about it for a while. My head is full right now anyway; I think I need to veg for a bit and let things settle. Are Oz and Angel expected to wake soon?”

“I’m actually rather surprised that Angel wasn’t awake first, with him being a vampire and all. But according to Hadrin there’s a reason for that, that he’s refused to tell me until he could explain it to all. He said that once one of you woke, the others would be close behind. So you shouldn’t have long to wait. Why don’t you just rest for a little bit until then?”

Xander nodded and closed his eyes again, wiggling to try to get comfortable. He was only partly successful, but as he wasn’t trying to go back to sleep, it would be good enough. He could hear Giles move away, probably back to the chair in the corner that had a book lying on the table beside it. While closing his eyes was easy, quieting his mind wasn’t working so well. It could be hard normally for him to focus enough to work through things in his head, but this seemed especially bad. So many odd images and strange memories that he was pretty sure weren’t his own. It was like he’d watched a bunch of movies while half asleep and could only remember bits and pieces of them that he had then mixed up in his head. Like Marty McFly had discovered that he was a Jedi and had to speak to the Wizard before aliens blow up the White House. Seriously disturbing.

He did actually wind up dozing off again for a little while, which seemed to have helped settle things a bit in his head. When he woke up again he could hear Giles giving the speech to someone else. Looking over, he could see that Oz was now awake and not looking particularly enthused about it. Checking Angel showed that he still wasn’t moving, so he figured explanations were still a while away.

He looked back to see Oz staring over at him and smiled faintly in acknowledgment before grimacing and closing his eyes. “I suggest you nap, Oz. It seems to be helping slightly with the head thing. I stress the ‘slightly’ part though.”

Oz grunted in response causing Xander to grin before he relaxed again, hoping he could pass out for a bit longer. He could almost make sense of a few things now and hoped that Angel would give him enough time to be able to clear his mind enough to pay attention to the details of what had happened as he was pretty sure it had been major.

There were no clocks in the room so he wasn’t sure how long it had been since Oz had woken, when he woke the third time to the deeper grumble of Angel’s voice. He was relieved that they were all good to go now, and he was ready for some answers.

Giles walked over to the door and spoke to someone outside before returning to check on Oz. He too must have heard the voices as he was shifting into an upright position. That seemed like a good idea to Xander as well and he bit back a groan as his muscles protested moving as he slowly pushed himself up. Angel didn’t appear to have any problems as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, but he didn’t attempt to stand up, so he obviously wasn’t feeling one hundred percent.

The door opened and three bedside tables were pushed into the room by three demons Xander placed as Gob’locks. Wasn’t sure where he’d heard of them, but he remembered that they were peaceful demons, neutral good generally. They were followed by someone who had to be the healer that had been helping them. The tables were rolled over, one per bed, and Xander was pleased to find that his had some very normal looking food on it and a bottle of water. Oz had something similar while Angel had a couple cups of what he assumed was blood.

“Gentlemen, I’m pleased to see that you’re all finally awake. It has been an interesting 24 hours since Mr. Giles brought you in. I requested that he not tell you of any of the issues I uncovered when caring for you until you could all hear and I didn’t tell him everything I found, as he is aware. If you’d like to eat now, we can have our conversation once you’ve refreshed yourselves.” He turned to look at Giles, “Were you expecting to have the other two join you for this conversation, or simply fill them in later?”

Giles checked his watch and frowned in concentration. “Assuming patrol went smoothly, they should be checking in here within the next half an hour. As they need to eat anyway, they should arrive before we’re ready to begin.”

By the time Wesley and Faith had arrived and caught Giles up on what had happened that evening, Xander was a bit impatient to get going with the information.

“So… can we find out what happened to us now? Were we attacked or did the spell go wrong?”

Hadrin pulled a chair over so he was sitting nearer to the beds and waited while the others got settled as well before starting. “Not to be confusing, but the answer to your question is yes.”

“Well, that cleared things up completely.” Oz told him from where he was seated cross-legged on his bed.

“I figured it would. When the three of you completed the spell you’d been performing to incorporate Angel’s soul with the physical body of the demon things were fine. You’d been successful and all was well. Before you physically disconnected and broke the final mental link you’d created to join the three of you in order to actually do the incorporation, someone else cast a spell on Angel from a distance. While I don’t believe the spell itself was meant to be an attack, it appeared to be one as the results of it would’ve destroyed the work you’d just finished doing.

“As you were all still linked, it impacted all of you, though Angel was primarily the one affected. Because of the link, you were able to help him withstand the first part of the spell and keep him intact. It was at this point that the three of you once again left the mindscape and returned to the physical world, though you still hadn’t ended the physical and mental link.

“Once again, just before you were able to do that, the second phase of the spell hit and, once again, affected all three. But because of the partial affects from part one, part two hit you all equally. And that one was not something you were then able to fight.”

“Yes, but what did it do to us?” Xander asked impatiently. While he appreciated the backstory, he was ready for the climax.

Hadrin shook his head slightly and sighed before continuing. “I was getting to that. As I was saying, when part two hit you couldn’t resist it and were knocked unconscious. Mr. Giles and his associates brought you here after you did not wake in a reasonable amount of time. When each of you were placed on the diagnostic beds, many of the runes carved into the headboard lit up. You may have noticed a few are still lit?” He looked around to see the nods. “Well, those runes are used to show when active spells are in effect. In my work, I need to know this so I know what I’m needing to fix and how best to do it.

“Because of what I found, I needed to remove the layers of spells already on you before I could clear things enough to see what had happened to you that evening. I kept track of what was removed and the magical signature of every spell. They all had the same magical signature. You, Xander, had the most and the oldest. Oz had the least. Angel had some of the most disturbing.”

“What spells were on me? I only know of the re-souling spell and the one done the other night. Willow did the one and Giles the other.”

“The one Giles cast, that Xander and Oz helped with, has been completely incorporated to the point that it doesn’t show at all. The re-souling spell is only a faint shadow now as it no longer is in effect. But it was through that I was able to identify the signature for the others as they were all the same.”

“Wait! You mean Wills has been casting spells on us? That’s not possible, she just started using magic within the past couple months and hasn’t gotten very far with it, the re-souling spell not included.”

“Based on the various minor controlling spells on you to try to bind you to her more firmly and the memory ones on Oz, I would say that you’re incorrect. And the behavior modification spells on Angel with a lust based component… she’s been doing plenty of studying.”

“Have… did you remove those spells now?” Oz asked faintly, looking very uneasy and a little bit sick.

“Yes, all those have been removed. The only reason that the beds are still lit up is the final spell from the other night is finishing working its way through your system. Once it’s done, the lights should all go out.”

Xander was still having a hard time thinking that one of his best friends had been casting spells on him without his permission, especially after she’d promised him that she wouldn’t try anything else without talking to Giles and getting his help.

“So, what did the final spell do to us and why can’t you remove it too?”

“I can’t remove it as it’s already completed what it was meant to do. It’s your mind and body incorporating the changes that’s happening now and that wouldn’t be wise to disturb. There’s a vast amount of information being handled right now in your brains and I don’t want to cause it not to be successful.”

“Yes, but what did it do?” Now even Giles was sounding testy.

“It linked them all together and made them immortal.”

***~*~***

The room was silent; it almost felt like everyone had spontaneously lost the ability to make noise it was so quite. Xander started to speak then stopped at the gargled sound he’d made and clear his throat before starting again.

“I think I must have misheard what you said because there’s no way you just told us that we’re immortal.”

“But I did say that. And that there’s a link between the three of you. It’s quite fascinating actually as I’ve never heard of a spell that could do that.”

Xander heard what sounded like a faint, “I wouldn’t call this fascinating,” from Oz, but Hadrin either didn’t hear him or decided to ignore it.

“What I think must have happened is that your friend Willow must have cast a spell to warp the original curse that she’d cast on Angelus to restore his soul. If I understand correctly, the exact same spell was used which means it would have the same happiness clause. Well, that combined with the lust spell she’d cast on Angel previously, which would keep him returning to the same situation he was in that caused it to go the first time, would mean it was only a matter of time until once again there was no soul and a crazy Angelus on the loose.”

This time it was Angel he heard, though it sounded like he was growling. Obviously Wesley thought so as well as he subtly moved his chair a bit further away.

“Do you mean to tell me that my interest in Buffy was the result of a lust spell Willow cast on me?”

“Well, Buffy being the slayer does mean that you wouldn’t normally choose to pair up with her. You could be friends, especially considering your special circumstances, but you’re still a vampire and she’s still a Slayer. It is actually quite unnatural if you think about it.”

“And that spell has been removed from me now?”

“Of course.”

“But I still care for Buffy.”

“Well, your body, mind, and emotions are still handling all the changes from the past day. You can’t expect to have everything just magically make sense after that… if you’ll pardon the expression.”

“I’m sure Wills did it with what she considered good intentions – not that I’m trying to say it was right!” Xander was quick to clarify at Angel’s furious look. “Apparently she’s been trying to adjust me for a while, so I’m not sticking up for her now, but I am trying to reason this out a bit.” No one seemed prime to butt in and Hadrin seemed content to let him talk for a bit, so he continued with his train of thought. “She’s been supposedly practicing magic for longer than we thought, maybe even since Giles arrived in Sunnydale as, face it, it’s not like the books were all that hidden and she would be one to actually innocently visit the library to find something to read. She finds a book on magic and thinks it looks interesting so tries a few things. Maybe on me or Jesse or just in general, but once she figures out it works, she feels she has to know all about it. I’m sure she located every book you had on the subject within the first couple months you were here and it was only that much easier once we found out about the nightlife in Sunnydale and had a reason to hang out there all the time.”

“Willow is definitely studious. I thought she was just a bit obsessive about the core subjects, I had no idea she’d branched out so much.” Oz looked devastated.

“Willow’s always had an issue with feeling overlooked. Jesse and I knew that and would ask her to help us with things, like homework, so she would feel like we needed her. It didn’t matter that we considered her one of our best friends; she just never felt that was enough. So here Buffy shows up and introduces us to this new and scary world and she wants to help this new friend so they’ll like her and want to keep her around. Wills never really had a female friend before. So, she sees how Buffy likes this guy who’s always hanging around and thinks, ‘I know something that can help with that and make Buffy happy’ and it’s not supposed to be a big deal, just get the guy interested – who knows – but somehow it becomes this big thing. Then we find out that Angel’s actually a vampire, but he has a soul so it’s still fine that she did this since he’s a good guy. Unfortunately falling in love, or lust, with a slayer who’s overdosing on her own sky high teenage hormones leads to things that bring on Angelus.

“I just wonder if she told Buffy anything about the spells she has cast previously or about the one she did the other night? Or is Buffy oblivious to this as well? Anyway, what was her spell trying to do to Angel?”

“Well, it appears to have been trying to lock him in his original form forever.”

The groan Xander gave was both loud and involuntary. “Oh, that would’ve been horrible.”

“I would’ve thought keeping Angel from losing his soul would be a good thing, I mean, isn’t that what you guys were doing the other night?” Faith had been quiet up until now, which was a bit odd considering her normal brash personality, but she’d gotten better recently since she’d been consulted about how to do her job and the comparisons to Buffy had been stopped – well, by everyone other than Buffy herself and occasionally Willow.

“Yes, keeping the soul glued in was our goal, but her way of doing it wouldn’t have worked due to the fact that ‘Angel’ is first and foremost a demon. The demon owns the body, not the person who died. Angel’s soul is actually of type of possession. Like the hyena was for me. It’s not supposed to be there naturally, so if she’d been successful, it would’ve locked away the soul and left the demon in charge. What we did was incorporate the two into one entity so there was no need for a curse to continue the possession. Though the spell did a good job of trying to undo our work to free the demon, so I guess on some level magic still felt that the demon side had more rights to things than the soul.”

“And since we were all still linked together, we were able to go back in and keep it from tearing down all our work,” Oz continued.

“Yes, you were both damaged during that as well, you were getting residual breakdown though you both were successfully able to take care of yourself. That is what led to the link between the three of you. You were open to each other completely while you fought to save Angel and things… mingled. It’s possible that just that itself would’ve led to a longer life span or some interesting abilities, if the second part of the spell hadn’t negated the need.”

“Well, now that we’re back to the issue we’ve all been trying to ignore, how are Xander and Oz now immortal? Angel already was basically immortal being a vampire, though they can be killed, but nothing you’ve said so far would lead me to conclude that anything would’ve changed for them.” Giles was polishing his glasses quite fiercely, a sign that he was incredibly displeased with someone.

“The immortality appears to have been part of the second part of the spell, the one that blasted everyone unconscious. Luckily you had the protective circle up as otherwise it might’ve affected yourself and Mr. Wyndam-Pryce as well to some degree, maybe being quicker to heal or just generally healthier. Since these three gentlemen were within the circle, thus containing the spell effects, as well as still being mentally and physically connected they were all impacted. And remember, the spell was to lock the original form together forever. All three of you are now as you will be forever.”

“Forever like a vampire is, or ‘forever’ forever?”

“That would be the ‘forever’ forever. Even Angel. The sun won’t even kill him now.”

Xander felt the room fade around him for a minute as he was hit with a wave of terror. “You mean if she’d done this before we had cast our spell, or if we hadn’t been able to protect Angel’s new form, we would’ve had an insane and immortal Angelus running around?” At Hadrin’s nod most everyone in the room looked like they were about to be physically sick to their stomach.

“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. So, while you may not appreciate the results personally, in the long run I think there are many beings that are very grateful for the way things turned out.”

“Good lord, that… how could there not have been some sort of warning that a catastrophe of that nature was possible? There are prophecies for little old ladies stubbing their toes on the third Thursday of the month of Mars, but nothing to warn that a teenager with low self-esteem is about to unleash an insane immortal vampire on the world?”

Yes, Giles was definitely furious.

“Well, whether that is the case or not, these are the circumstances that we are now dealing with. It seems like you all need to have a conversation with your young witch. She’s showing incredibly bad judgement in general and casting the types of spells she has been while on or around the Hellmouth is even more foolish as it can warp even the most benign spells, not to mention the caster.”

“She promised me, swore to me after she cast the spell to restore Angel’s soul that she wouldn’t do anything like that again without consulting with Giles. Seeing her cast that spell, she didn’t look human and it scared me that something would happen to her if she continued with magic.”

“Yes, Oz, she promised me as well that she wouldn’t cast without coming to me first. Apparently that didn’t happen.”

“I can point you to someone who can help generally protect you from magic being cast against you or on you. That might help ease your minds a bit considering what has already happened. Otherwise though, you’re all free to go. You’re still incorporating the link and all it brings as well as the immortality. Both may take a couple days to complete and you’ll likely feel a bit unsettled until then. You’ll also find that the three of you will feel more comfortable around each other. I don’t know if the link will provide any further benefits, but as your soul bonding is settled I suspect that you’ll gain some interesting memories and possibly remember skills from previous lives.”

“I think I’m going to need to process things for a while before I’m going to be anywhere close to comfortable with what you’ve mentioned, though I apparently will have all the time I need to do it.” Xander grimaced at that thought, pushing it to the side again. Denial was a familiar thing for him. “I would be interested in finding a way to protect myself from further spells. It seems even more important than ever now to not have people able to control my thoughts and actions.”

***~*~***

Xander had lost all of Saturday to recovering from the spells, so he could only be thankful that the correct moon alignment was on a Friday so he didn’t miss a day of school as that would’ve been hard to hide. Unlike the girls, his parents wouldn’t care whether he was around or if they hadn’t seen him in a couple days.

He’d snuck into the house when Giles dropped him off and was able to make it to his room without waking his parents who were sleeping in front of the TV. He’d barely had the strength to remove enough clothes to make sleeping more comfortable before he was passed out asleep.

Despite the chaos of his dreams that would normally have led to a rough night’s sleep, he actually felt quite rested when he woke up. He figured that was a good sign as he’d apparently be reliving past lives in his dreams for a while now, not to mention dealing with all the info he’d received about Oz and Angel’s lives. He still would’ve preferred to have slept more, but they all had dates with the contact Hadrin had given them to get medallions that would block spells being cast against them without their permission.

He finished getting dressed and headed down the stairs to grab something to eat before heading outside to meet the others, who were just pulling up in Oz’s van. The fact that he could feel them coming was a bit wiggy, but also oddly comforting. His gaze found Oz as soon as he’d slid the side door open, both nodding in acknowledgment of the relief they felt in having the separation over for a while. He then turned to Angel and grinned to see him sitting in a patch of sunlight coming in one of the windows. He nodded to the others in greeting before squeezing into a spot beside Angel, leaning into him slightly.

Giles had claimed shotgun, probably claiming that he needed to sit in front to give directions, but Wesley and Faith were sprawled in the back as well. Faith apparently felt it was too early and was laying out stretched, taking up a lot of space for one of the shortest people in the van, and snoring loudly. Wesley simply grimaced in return before returning to the book he was reading, which appeared to be a paperback novel of some sort.

Xander himself was dozing a bit by the time Giles called back to let them all know they were almost there. He startled awake to find he had been using Angel as a pillow and the other man had apparently not minded. Faith stretched and slowly moved to sit against the wall, across from the others, and pulled a bottle of water out of a bag. She’d finished about half of it by the time Oz stopped the van.

The woman they met was odd, but appeared to be human, though there was no guarantee that she actually was. She was also very old and rather slow moving, but her mind was sharp and she definitely wasn’t shy in giving her opinion. She’d been warned that they would be coming so was aware of what they wanted and was very blunt in her irritation that someone was misusing her magical gifts in the way she had.

She already had a supply of medallions created and all they needed was a bit of their blood to bind it to them. She also suggested an addition that would not allow them to be removed unless they voluntarily chose to take them off that they were happy to do.

As she had some extras, Xander asked if he could have two extras, one for Mrs. Summers and the other for Cordy, just in case. She looked at him for a bit then nodded and pulled out two more and got them set up for them – just add blood. He figured it might take a bit of convincing to get Cordy to accept jewelry from him again, but considering what it does and what they had proof of Willow doing he figured she’d get over it.

Before they left, the woman pressed a bunch of folded papers into Giles’ hand telling him, “No one ever learns if there are no consequences. If life doesn’t provide the consequences personally, sometimes you have to give it a shove.”

Giles looked at her oddly before unfolding the pages and reading a bit of it. He paled and his eyes went wide in shock before narrowing again. “Yes, a shove may be just what’s needed in this situation. Thank you.”

The trip back seemed faster, but that might be because they were pestering Giles to tell them about what she’d given him, but he refused to say, stating that he wanted to read everything before making any decisions.

Oz dropped the Watchers and Faith off at Giles’ place as they apparently had plans to review what Faith had seen the past couple nights when she’d been out patrolling. The other three looked at each other oddly once they were alone in the van; this was the first time they’d been alone together since they’d left Angel’s mindscape and it all felt rather awkward, despite how comfortable it also felt.

“Well, Angel, it’s daytime, sun’s out. Anything you feel like doing?” Oz questioned finally, starting up the van.

“You know, I’d really like to see the ocean with sunlight hitting it instead of the moonlight.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

***~*~***

They hadn’t talked much while they were there, simply walked along the shore a bit then sat and watch the waves come in until high tide began to threaten their seats and they decided to head out. As Oz and Xander had to be at school the next day, they both headed home and Angel headed back to the mansion after agreeing to meet them in the Library after school, when they were planning to confront Willow and Buffy.

***~*~***

By lunchtime Xander had pretty much decided that trying to avoid someone who was in a majority of your classes was pretty much impossible. He’d done his best to limit the time they could try to talk to him by coming in just before the bell in the two classes they’d had together so far. He planned to head to the Library during lunch to do some reading and avoid them in the cafeteria; Oz conveniently had a band meeting so would be talking with Devon and the group so also had an excuse to avoid his girlfriend and Buffy. Assuming everyone made it through the afternoon, Giles had sent out word to all that something had come up and everyone needed to meet after school.

Xander had at least been able to get Cordy alone for a few minutes and convince her to wear the medallion. Despite the benefits, she might still have refused if it didn’t appear to go invisible once it was bonded and put on; apparently to help in making sure no one tried to remove it. He promised to explain why he wanted her to have it later; he just couldn’t talk about it yet.

Finally classes ended and the school emptied and the Scoobies made their way to the Library.

“So, Giles, what’s the sitch? Did Faith have problems patrolling for me over the weekend or something?” Buffy hopped up on the counter and started checking her nails, while Willow had immediately headed over towards Oz with a pleased smile before noticing that there wasn’t an extra seat next to him for her to sit in. She huffed and found the empty seat they’d left for her and plopped down into it.

“No, Buffy, Faith didn’t have any issues while she did her patrols this weekend. We actually gathered some very important data about a nest that will need to be looked into tonight.”

“Well, just tell me where to go and I’ll take care of it for you. I am back on the job.”

“No need. You’ll be doing the cemetery route while Faith handles it. She already knows the location and scouted out the problem.”

“But, Giles…”

“No, Buffy. Now, I’ve asked you all here today as it has come to my attention that there was something of a disturbance, magically, this weekend and I wanted to know if anyone has heard anything that might explain it.”

Xander had been trying to keep an unobtrusive eye on Buffy and Willow as he knew what was coming, which was the only reason he noticed the smug smirk that briefly played across Buffy’s face. Willow’s expression didn’t really change, but she did straighten in her seat just a bit and she got a tilt to her head that she always seemed to have when she was especially proud of how she’d done on a test.

“Well, it can’t be Amy as she’s still a rat and rats really aren’t good at casting spells, besides if she could cast a spell, she’d probably cast one to turn herself back human again, unless she can turn herself human then she caused this disturbance you’re talking about then turned herself back into a rat to throw us off the scent…”

“Willow, breathe, I doubt Giles thinks Amy had anything to do with whatever it is he’s upset about. So what was the disturbance? Can’t have been too bad since you didn’t light the bat signal for us to come in and deal with it.”

“I guess it was too much to expect for you to provide any useful information,” he didn’t pause, despite the immediate angry looks on both of their faces. “I guess it was also too much to expect for you to tell us the truth. So, let me be more direct with my question: Willow, what spell did you cast Friday evening on Angel?”

It was obvious that Willow was attempting to respond, her mouth was open and her lips were moving, but nothing was coming out and when she realized that her hands few to her throat and she turned terrified eyes to Buffy.

“I guess I need to be even more specific, when I said I wanted the truth, I meant that you weren’t to lie to me. As I have reason to suspect some of what I’ve been told recently, I did a bit of prep work before this meeting to ensure that, if I needed to, I could ensure that there were no more lies. Now, if you stop trying to lie to me, you will be able to talk. Shall we try again?”

You could tell she was trying to get around the spell, find some way to prevaricate, but it wasn’t working. Eventually her shoulders slumped a bit, though she still looked rather proud of herself. “Fine, I found a spell that would permanently bind Angel’s soul so he wouldn’t have to worry about the happiness clause again and he and Buffy could be happy together.”

“I see. And where might you have found this spell? I wasn’t aware you had a collection of spell books to reference?”

“I… I got it from Amy.”

“Oh, so Amy has books on soul magic? I wouldn’t have though she was advanced enough for that, considering she can’t reverse her own rat transformation.”

“It was her mom’s.” Xander could tell that Willow really wasn’t happy about admitting all this. The words were almost being forced from her by now.

“Was it? Yes, because she is absolutely the role model all young witches should want to grow up to be like. Have you borrowed other books from her collection?”

“…yes.”

Giles nodded. “Do you remember the conversation we had after you restored Angel’s soul when I told you that what you’d done was very dangerous and that I wanted you to promise that you would come to me if you were interested in learning any more about magic and certainly before you tried any more spells?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t bring this to me beforehand why?”

“Because I knew you’d say it was too advanced for me.”

“And I absolutely would have, though not completely for the reason you believe. Soul magic is very advanced. It takes practice to be able to cast it and a great deal of research to know what the outcome will be. You also have to follow it to the letter or there can be horrible and tragic results, both to the target of the spell and even to the caster. Why did you decide to cast the spell?”

“B… Buffy was afraid that Angel would leave since he was afraid that they’d forget again and do something that would make him too happy. She figured if the soul was permanent, he wouldn’t have to leave and they could resume dating. Buffy deserves to be happy and Angel shouldn’t have to worry about going evil again and killing people, so I found a spell to take care of the problem. It just needed a bit of tweaking.”

Xander found himself staring at a vein on Giles’ temple that appeared to be visibly throbbing as his temper rose while Willow spoke. He himself couldn’t even look at her right now and he could feel the anger radiating from the stacks where Angel had agreed to wait until they’d finished the first part of the conversation.

“You absolutely foolish child! You ‘tweaked’ a spell that was to be cast on another being’s soul? What training have you done to be able to know how to adapt such a spell in a way that you won’t cause irreparable harm to the target of the spell? Have you gained a mastery in soul magic without telling us or are you simply too convinced of your own infallible magical ability that you feel you can do anything you want?”

“The spell completed just fine. I knew what I was doing, I’m not a novice and I did fully research the spell beforehand. You just want to hold me back. I did a good thing with that spell, just ask Angel; I know he’ll be happy that it’s safe for he and Buffy to be together again.”

“So you’re telling me he _didn’t_ ask you to never cast anything on him again without checking with him first? That if he ever lost his soul again, Buffy should just stake him to stop him from killing more people?”

“Well, yes, he did say that, but I knew he didn’t mean it because why would he want to leave Buffy?”

This was finally too much for Angel to stay silent about and he left the stacks, stalking down to join them in the main area of the Library. “Why would I want to leave Buffy? Did you or did you not cast a spell on me to encourage my attraction to Buffy?”

Willow’s face went white while Buffy looked furious, though still silent while Willow was the one being questioned. “…Yes, I did. I…”

“And did it occur to you that I should get a say in who I do or do not get involved with?”

“I… no, but…”

“Did it occur to you to check with me about this new spell you wanted to cast on me? Or were my feelings again considered inconsequential to the situation?”

“Buffy wanted me to do it, so I did. Your feelings didn’t matter to me.”

“I’m so happy to finally hear you admit that. Now, did you care about Xander’s feelings all those times that you tried to adjust his emotions to get him to become interested in you? Or how about when you ‘convinced’ Oz that he wasn’t really all that mad about that kiss you had with Xander? What say have you given them in the spells you’ve been casting on them?”

***~*~***

If Xander weren’t still equally angry and devastated over the knowledge that Willow had been practicing her spell casting on him, he might have felt a little bad about the horrified expression on the face of someone who’d been one of his best friends for so long. As it was, he crushed that impulse as soon as it thought to raise its head and focused on her reply.

“But, I wasn’t… I wasn’t hurting anyone. They were all just… minor things. We got to High School and Xander and Jesse were spending more time with other people; I just wanted them to want to spend time with me again. And Oz… the kiss was a mistake and he didn’t need to be angry about it…” She trailed off, shooting both guys pleading looks.

“Jesse and I had been friends with you for ten years at this point and instead of telling us you missed us and wanted to spend more time together and catch up, you decided that a spell to bind us to you was better? Or that you needed to make me like you as a girlfriend? It must’ve been really frustrating when I focused on Cordy instead as the friend I chose to get closer to. I did some crappy things to her while we were dating and the sad thing is that I’m not clear yet which ones were all me and which ones can be laid against you. I can only hope that, as the spells finish clearing out of my system, I’ll be able to figure it out so that I know exactly what to ask forgiveness for.”

He looked over at Oz, wondering if he wanted to address the spells on himself. They’d had some difficulties in their own friendship because of issues with Willow, though they’d been able to talk them through. It helped that they’d spent so much time together by themselves while working on the werewolf thing, but they’d still had a number of really tense conversations after the love spell he’d had Amy cast and again after the kiss when they’d been attacked by Spike. Apparently Willow’s spell had only been for Oz to forgive her, not to forgive him as well. But they’d worked through it.

Oz had been looking down at his hands, gripped tightly enough together on top of the table to cause the skin to go white, but feeling Xander’s gaze on him he looked over and caught his eye. Slowly his grip relaxed and he moved to carefully lay them flat against the table top.

“Willow… I am so angry with you right now. My feelings, my thoughts, and those of my friends, are our own and the thought that you cared so little about that makes me doubt I ever knew you at all as the person I thought I was dating would never have treated someone she cares about so horribly. You know how bad Xander felt when he had Amy cast the spell to try to get Cordy back and instead it affected every female around him. While most of the women forgot, per usual here in Sunnydale, those of you who remembered he apologized to profusely and worked to make amends, even though the spell hadn’t been aimed at you to begin with. And you and Buffy made him work for your forgiveness – _how dare he make the two of you act like that, take away your free will_? Yet all this time you’d been doing the same to him and it might have been something you’d done that led to Amy’s spell reacting the way it did.”

“But!”

“No ‘Buts’, Willow. You did wrong and you still don’t seem sorry for doing it, just that we now know and have taken care to remove everything. The sad thing is, in the long run this isn’t even the worst thing you’ve done. We only know about this from having had to save everyone from that.” Xander nodded at Giles who said something softly under his breath before turning to Buffy, who’d stopped trying to yell at them a while before, since no one could actually hear her, and was now glaring fiercely at them all.

“So, Buffy, tell us how you’ve been involved in these spells and keep in mind the honesty part of the conversation, if you please.”

“How dare you…! Willow has done nothing wrong, she hasn’t hurt anyone and people were happier with what she’d done. Xander would’ve been good with Willow, but he was too stupid to realize it, even with her help. He couldn’t seem to figure things out until she’d moved on to Oz, then he was messing that up for her. Oz isn’t a bad guy, despite being a werewolf; there was no need for him to be upset over Xander, so it’s best he forgave Willow. And Angel is mine, we belong together. Willow is a good friend who was just helping us with that. I’m sure if Angel understood what she’d done, he wouldn’t be upset!”

“Oh really? And what do you think she did?”

“She bound his soul to him so it can’t be lost when we’re happy together!”

“And how, exactly, did she do that?”

“Duh! With the spell we cast on Friday. It was designed to lock his soul to his body forever.”

“No, Buffy, it was NOT to bind his soul to his body, it was to lock him into his original form forever.”

“Yes, and his ‘form’ has the soul attached and it was going to be locked in place. This isn’t difficult to understand. This was a good thing, Giles!”

“No, Buffy, it wasn’t. Angel’s ‘original form’ is Angelus who has no soul and is quite crazy and violent; that was the form you were trying to lock into place. His soul would not have been in control and most likely would’ve been trapped inside him having to bear witness to everything Angelus did, unlike before, when the soul just left completely. Also, you weren’t paying attention to the ‘forever’ part which was literally that you’d be doing this forever. If you’d succeeded, Angelus would’ve been back and there would not have been a way to kill him.”

“So, I guess the spell didn’t work, since Angel appears to be Angel?”

“Oh no, Willow, your spell worked just fine. The only thing that somewhat saved this situation, is that before you cast your spell, we’d already cast one of our own, which is why we’d made sure you two were going to be safely taking a night off to relax. Unlike you, when Xander had the idea to find a way to make sure Angelus could never come back, he checked with Angel to make sure he was okay with the idea, and then he came to me with his plan. Then the three of us and Oz spent a couple months researching a spell and making sure we understood exactly how it would work. Once we’d done all that, we made sure that everyone that could possibly disturb us was elsewhere for the evening, though it’s obvious that trusting you to actually tell the truth about your plans was foolish of us, then we cast the spell.”

“But they don’t have any magic! You should’ve told us about it and we could’ve been there to help you instead. I did the re-souling spell to begin with, I should’ve been there.”

“You weren’t needed and you couldn’t have helped as you didn’t have the skills needed. Xander and Oz did.”

Buffy scoffed. “Really? _Xander_ had the skills?”

“That’s enough, Buffy. I have no idea what’s gotten into you that you feel this way about someone who’s help you since the moment you met, but your behavior is completely unacceptable. You seem to feel that being the Slayer means you should always get your way. Unfortunately you’ve also found a novice witch with more power than common sense who’s willing to help give you what you want, but that is over now! I am horrified by the attitude you’re showing and quite at a loss as to what started it. When Jillian died, she made you a Slayer, not a God or a Queen to reign over her lowly subjects and impose your will on them.

“I think I’ve had all I can deal with today. You both seem completely unrepentant of your actions and I need time to decide how I wish to deal with what I’ve learned today. Buffy, hopefully you don’t feel you’re too important to be able to complete your Slayer duties, so I expect you to complete your normal patrols. I’d ask you to give your reports to Wesley, but he has his own slayer to work with and you are my responsibility so I will deal with that as my duty, but otherwise, neither you nor Willow are welcome to hang out in my Library until you are invited to return. Now I think you should both go home. Now.”

Both girls jumped from their seats as if poked, gathered their belongings and headed out though not without shooting hurt looks at the others for not sticking up for them.

Angel followed them to the door, listening until he could confirm they’d really left the area before returning and taking a seat at the table. “Anyone else got the feeling that there will soon be an attempt to change our minds about how this conversation went or forget it completely?”

“That’s a bet I’m not taking. I could see it on Wills’ face as they were leaving. She’s already planning how to do it. I’m glad you didn’t tell her about the medallions, Giles. I trust they’ll do what they’re supposed to, but if she knows about them, she could possibly find a way around it.”

“Especially as she appears to have Amy’s mother’s spell books. From what you have said, she is not the type of witch you would want her or anyone else to wish to emulate.” Wesley looked quite concerned and was rubbing his head like he had a headache.

“Can you change this Amy chick back to a girl? Then she can take her mom’s stuff back from Red.” Now that the formal part of the meeting was over, Faith had pushed her chair back from the table and had swung her legs up to rest her feet on it. “At least then she loses some of her worst resources. Not sure what we can do about all the books here, since it is the school library, but maybe some of them should be moved back to your place?”

Giles nodded. “Yes, we will need to look into ways to protect the books from being accessible to anyone who walks in. I’d prefer to keep them at my home, but I don’t have the room for all of them and still have room to live there. I’ll see what I can come up with. If any of the rest of you have ideas on how to handle it, please let me know. Xander, I gave the necklace to Joyce earlier today. She wasn’t pleased to hear what we suspected had been going on, but she also admitted that Buffy had been a bit spoiled as an only child and was used to having her way. She was going to try to talk to her this evening, though I warned her she might not be in a good mood when she got home.”

“And I gave the other to Cordy after lunch and watched her put it on. I had to promise her an explanation tomorrow. That should be fun. She’s going to be furious. Can’t say I blame her.” Xander stood up and stretched. “Faith, do you guys need back up tonight? I can come back later if so.”

“I’ve already said I’d help if needed, though I think Faith will be fine. I’m mainly going to make sure nothing unexpected shows up.”

“Great, thanks, Angel. Wesley, Giles, Faith – have a good evening. I’ll see you tomorrow. Oz, you have some time to talk?”

“Was just planning to do some practicing. You’re welcome to come over and keep me company.”

***~*~***

They didn’t talk much until they were settled into Oz’s room and he was strumming random chords on his guitar.

“I’ve noticed that I know how to play better now.”

It wasn’t much of an opening, but it did give him a place to start. “I know. I was in history class today and could answer all the questions for the pop quiz and give additional information that I know wasn’t in the book. I’m wondering if they’ll accuse me of cheating, but it’s not like I’ll be able to tell them that I apparently lived during the time period we were being tested on so had access to additional info.”

“I seem to be remembering skills more than actual memories of people or places so far, or maybe memories attached to things I’ve done. I remember playing the piano for a group of people, but not who they were or why. I remember making something with leather, but not what I was making or who it was for. I do remember more each time I sleep though, more pieces fill in. I’m not sure how many lives I’ve remembered parts of yet.”

“I understand. I remember places I’ve been, though I don’t always know where they are. I remember faces, but I can’t remember names and who they were in relation to whoever I was then. I… I think I’ve seen you, or someone I seem to know was you then, at least once. You didn’t look the same, but it still felt like you. There was a connection of some sort. I think we were friends, maybe, but I’m still remembering things myself.”

Oz continued to play softly and Xander had to admit that it was very different to what he’d heard from him in the past.

“How… how are you dealing with all this? It’s a lot to take in all at once.”

“I could ask the same of you. I’m not the only one that just heard I’m going to spend the rest of time as a teenager.”

“I’m actually trying not to think about that right now. I’m pretty much focusing on dealing with what Willow, and to some extent Buffy, have been doing to everyone. Once I figure out how I’m handling that, then maybe I can start dealing with the ‘eternity’ aspect of their betrayal.”

He sighed, “Jesse and I tried so hard to boost her self-confidence, but she’d pretty much been trained by her parents to believe that her being smart was her only real use to people and if she wasn’t the best in the class in her studies then she was doing something wrong. Any time we proved we weren’t dumb and actually knew what was going on in class as well as she did, she’d get depressed. So, we decided to pretend. It didn’t seem to matter to her that we were all in the same advanced classes, and that we always passed things, no matter how much trouble we said we were having, we just made sure not to show her any actual grades and prevaricate when she asked how we did on something. Do you know how many times Snyder has pulled me aside over the past two years for not living up to my full potential? It infuriates him that I do this, as he can see all my grades as Principle, and while he understands my reasons he doesn’t agree with them. Maybe he’s right and we handled it all wrong, but no one else seemed to be doing anything that helped either.”

“I don’t think that excuses what she’s done though.”

“No, I agree, but I’m not sure that I helped the situation. We gave into her so much to try to help her, maybe that just taught her to think that she had the right to get things her own way as we were too stupid to make those decisions ourselves and she’d know what was best.”

“So why didn’t Giles mention that she’d made us immortal? I thought he planned to fully explain just what she’d done to everyone?”

“I did too, but I think I’m glad he didn’t, especially with Buffy’s attitude today. Her ‘Oz is okay in spite of being a werewolf’ thing and the whole ‘Xander’s too stupid to be helpful’ comments didn’t exactly make me want to share all my deep, dark secrets with her. Not to mention that she pretty much laid claim to Angel without caring that he no longer appears interested in being owned.”

“By the way, have you noticed that you’re calling him ‘Angel’ now?”

“That’s his name…?”

“Yes, but you’ve generally called him ‘Deadboy’ to his face up until now and only rarely Angel.”

“Hmmm… you’re right. I hadn’t noticed, but he feels like…” Xander paused, blushing.

“Like…?” Oz prompted, as he stopped playing to look at him directly.

“Like pack. Like Kyle and Rhonda and Tor and Heidi felt back when we were all possessed by the hyena. He’s now part of my family and I have to protect him. And part of that is being respectful of him. After Friday, I feel like I know him. I have so many memories of him when he was Liam, and what his life was like. He wasn’t a great person, but he also wasn’t horrible and I can only imagine the trauma he must’ve gone through to have died and been wherever his soul had gone after death before coming back for another round then finding himself shoved into his old dead body and being forced to remember all the things the demon had done while wearing his face. I’m honestly surprised that he didn’t kill himself once he realized what had happened, which makes me wonder if something to keep that from happened wasn’t part of the curse. If they wanted Angelus to suffer forever, having Angel choose to die instead wasn’t in their plans.”

“I can see that. It really was a horrible thing that Willow cast that spell to re-soul Angelus, wasn’t it? It truly was a curse.

“So,” he continued after taking a deep breath, “You think we knew each other before? In one of those past lives we’re both in the process of remembering and incorporating?”

“Yes, I really do. I think we were friends. I think you were rich,” he teased. “I seem to recall some rather fancy outfits. I think Jesse was there too,” he continued with a bittersweet smile, “and we all knew each other, but I don’t know the details yet.”

“Well, if I remember anything, I’ll let you know. It won’t all be good though; it can’t be.”

“Nothing ever is, Oz, but I’ll still want to know.”

***~*~***

The past couple of days had been some of the most confusing and disturbing of his rather long life, which considering he’d become a vampire, been cursed with his soul, lost his soul, regained it, gone to hell and come back… well, that was saying something.

He could see the differences in himself since he woke up Saturday evening. He felt calmer than he could remember ever feeling, even when he’d still been human. Part of it was just the relief of no longer being at war with himself. Even when human, he’d had to hide aspects of himself that weren’t acceptable to his father. The vampire had been less conflicted without the human hang-ups to deal with, but he’d struggled against being his own master and respecting his Sire. Once the soul was restored the internal conflict was even worse, dealing with the memories of things ‘he’d’ done. But now, he actually felt at peace. All the parts of him, the violence and rage, the scholar and artist, the part that wanted a family and to belong, and the part that needed to control his own life and be independent.

What Xander and Oz had done for him was immeasurable. That they’d been changed in the process was something he regretted and truly hoped he could help them deal with. The revelations of Willow and Buffy’s actions, the betrayals, were a shock to them all. But maybe most to those who’d been so close to them both.

Buffy was the protector, the hero, held to a higher standard and expected to do whatever she could to help those under her protection. Maybe it wasn’t fair to expect that of someone her age, but they’d all been there to try to help her, even though it wasn’t encouraged and most hadn’t had any real training to do so. To hear that she didn’t appreciate their contributions, or felt it was her ‘due’ to get these things, had been painful. Hearing himself once again referred to as a possession, something someone felt like they owned, had brought up some painful memories, but what was worse was feeling the echoes of pain through the link from Xander and Oz on his behalf. Not to mention the ones from every time they were forced to hear of another betrayal.

Willow – sweet, shy, bookworm Willow had been playing with magic for years and using those people she supposedly cared about the most as her targets. Angel hadn’t mentioned it yet, though he was sure some of the others had already considered, that the three of them might not have been her only victims. He hadn’t asked, but he hoped that Giles had asked Hadrin to look for spells on himself, Wesley and Faith as well while they were there, just in case. And considering how much Willow hated Cordelia and the relationship she’d had with Xander, there was a good chance she’d tried something on her as well. Mrs. Summers…? Once the doubts were there, it was hard to stop wondering what she might have done, who she might have affected in her efforts to set people’s lives up the way she felt they should be.

Angel sighed as he wandered around the largely empty mansion that had been his base of operations while Angelus. Once he’d returned from Hell and recovered enough of his sanity to function properly again, he’d moved all his belongings from his old apartment and officially decided to live here, but, looking at it now, he wasn’t happy with that decision. He’d originally felt it was a better fit than the small dark apartment where he’d hidden from the world once he arrived in Sunnydale, but this place had so many painful associations as well that staying here was no longer looking like the right thing either.

He figured it wasn’t a decision he had to make anytime soon, but figured he’d discuss it with Xander and Oz when they came over later on.

He’d checked in with them pretty much once a day that week, as well as meeting up with Giles and Wesley when they needed to discuss something one of the slayers had found while on patrol. As he’d agreed to help out if needed, he had needed to spend some time with Buffy two nights that week, but had refused to get into a discussion with her about ‘their relationship’ as she called it and, once whatever creature she’d needed backup for was taken care of, he’d simply returned to Giles to report in and then left despite her increasingly annoyed and angry requests to get over it and come back to her.

According to the guys, Willow had started out the week walking around like a kicked puppy, but after a few days when there had been no change in attitude towards her she’d started to get angry. It hadn’t helped that Cordelia had apparently hunted her down mid-week, after Xander had finally had a chance to explain everything that had been going on, and given her a very large piece of her mind over the situation as well. Angel was completely heartbroken to have missed that particular conversation, but he’d gotten a blow-by-blow from Xander later and had to admit that, since it included Xander’s commentary on it as well as what Cordelia had said, it was probably just as good if not better in the re-telling.

But it certainly had pissed off Willow. While they couldn’t say that she’d tried anything yet against them, she had to be getting close to wanting to try and as the weekend would be a perfect time, Giles had decided to go visit Willow’s house while she was at school to collect rat Amy and any books he could locate that belonged to either him or the Madison family. Since Angel was now able to be out in sunlight, he’d gone with him as back up and to help distract Willow’s parents who were spending an odd couple days in town, though were due to head out that afternoon again. They’d been concerned that Willow had borrowed so many books from the Library that the school Librarian had had to come and collect them, but Angel had been able to explain that they were doing an audit of the collection and were recalling all the books from loan so that they could complete the process as quickly as possible to least disrupt the students’ studies. As these were all for personal reading, not a school project, they’d agreed to pick them up themselves to save her the trip.

It was horrifying to see the range and amount of books she’d had hidden in her room, and it had taken them both two trips to get them all out to Giles’ car where they’d loaded up the back seat and carefully placed the cage with Amy in it on top.

They’d unloaded the books at Giles’ home then passed Amy to Wesley and Faith who were going to take her to Hadrin, who had agreed to see what he could do to restore her.

He was distracted from his thoughts when he heard the doorbell chime. He could sense who was there and smiled as he quickly went to open the door and let the two men in.

“Hey, Angel, heard you’ve had a busy day.” Xander smiled easily as he walked in, followed by a calmer though no less pleased Oz.

“It was productive.” He ushered them inside and then out to the patio. He’d been spending a lot of time out there since the sun no longer bothered him. He waited until everyone was comfortable before asking, “So, has there been any news about Amy?”

“Not much. Wesley did call Giles to confirm that they arrived okay and that Hadrin felt he could help her, but nothing had been done yet. They apparently couldn’t talk long as Buffy showed up, despite not having been asked to stop by. Giles thinks Willow had found out somehow about the books being taken and she was coming to scout, but he didn’t allow her to stick around long enough to snoop or ask a lot of questions. He is thinking that he needs to work on getting the rest of his collection out of the Library soon. Not to mention, Buffy graduates this year and after that, hanging out in the High School Library would look even more suspicious than it already generally does.”

“Good point. Does he have any ideas? I know he said he doesn’t have room at his current home, is thinking to move?”

“He’s looking into his options. It’s not like the Watcher’s council really pays him much for doing this and High School Librarians aren’t high on the pay scale either, not to mention he may be looking for another job anyway once Buffy graduates.”

“Well… I’ve been thinking that I don’t really want to stay here much longer, as it no longer feels right for me. Do you think he’d want to use this place? It’s way too big for him alone, but I know Wesley and Faith could use something more secure than where they are currently and there’s definitely enough room for his books here.”

“We can mention it to him, but it is a bit further out if something’s going on. He might prefer being closer to the Hellmouth just to be able to better keep an eye on things.” Oz commented. He yawned, “Sorry, you’d think with as much sleep as I’ve been getting, I wouldn’t still be tired.”

“You still dreaming on your past lives?” Angel asked curiously. “I thought that would’ve ended by now?”

Oz looked over at Xander then back to Angel. “Well, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen everything once now, but now it’s more detailed. The first time through was like watching TV. You see what everyone does and says, but if you’re not shown it, you don’t know what the details are. Now it’s like I’m living it. I can remember what I was thinking and feeling and I KNOW people now. They’re not just characters in some bizarre TV series. And you start recognizing people, or I guess souls. Xander and I have met a number of times apparently.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit freaky to see how many times you see someone you recognize. I know I’ve come across Jesse at least twice, Willow 2-3 times as well. Ran across Giles a couple of lives back, that sort of thing. And I don’t think I’ve seen all the lives yet. I keep getting hints of something old, something way back, that I’m working towards. Not sure if it’s just extra important for some reason, or just so far back that it’s taking a while to appear.”

They exchanged a glance. “You know, Angel, we knew you… before. Probably the life before Liam’s actually. It was a peaceful life for us all, as far as I can tell. Grew up in a small town together, got married, had families… all very normal and all very… unsatisfying.” Oz stopped speaking, mouth slightly open as if he was in mid thought. “I’ve spent a number of lives looking for something that I can’t seem to find. I’ve grown up, did some interesting things, gotten married and generally lived long and apparently happy lives and yet, re-watching them, I’m left with the feeling that I ultimately failed at something important. That I made a wrong choice somewhere, or didn’t know there was a choice to be made, and missed out on… I don’t know. I can’t figure it out. I think I’m hoping that Xander’s right that that first incarnation he thinks is coming will explain why I’m feeling that way.”

“Are you feeling that too, Xander?”

“Not as much, there’s a bit of wistfulness at the end sometimes, those times when I had time to think about it before I died. Nothing as strong as Oz has mentioned though.”

“Well, you both have time to figure it out, if you decide you need to. Nothing needs to be done now about it, most likely. One thing at a time.”

Xander grinned, “Any more clichés you want to add in there while you’re at it? Time heals all wounds? Haste makes waste?”

“All’s fair in love and war? As good as it gets?”

“Out of sight, out of mind?”

“Once in a blue moon…”

Angel laughed, “Yeah, yeah. Just one more,” he said, putting out his hand, “All for one, and one for all.” The other two smiled, reaching out in return.

***~*~***

Xander wiped some of the sweat from his forehead as he balanced the latest heavy box of books on the library table. “Hey, Giles, how many more are you hoping to get out of here today?”

Giles looked up from where he was seated on the floor of the library, checking off books from a list. He glanced around the room at the gaps in the shelves before looking back at Xander. “I just planned to fill the trailer tonight and get it unloaded at the house. We should be pretty close to that by now.”

“You’ve got room for maybe two more boxes, Giles,” Faith said as she returned with Wesley from their latest load. She deftly picked up one from the floor then lightly pushed Xander to the side and took his too.

“It’s not fair, she’s not even sweating a bit,” he grumbled as he watched her push open the Library doors and head for the parking lot. He could hear her laughing her way down the hall.

“Well, I guess we’re almost done here for the evening. I’d like to start filling in some of the empty shelves, but I have those books in boxes in the back already.”

“Great, more boxes. Are they at least really heavy, because those are my favorites?”

“Not all of them, I’m sure, but we’ll make sure you don’t have to deal with those,” Giles said mildly as he got to his feet and handed Wesley the pages in his hand. “Wesley, if you and Faith could take the trailer back to the house and get it unloaded, we’ll start here. Use the list to make sure the boxes stay organized. I hope to not have anything come up while things are so inaccessible, but if it should, at least we have a list and a system for finding what’s needed.”

As Wesley headed out, Giles took Xander by the arm and led him back to the storage room to start bringing back the books that Giles had stored when he took the position and brought his own collection with him. Considering how rarely students actually entered the Library, it wasn’t surprising that they hadn’t been needed since then.

Angel rejoined them from where he’d been watching over the trailer and the three of them quickly moved out the boxes and re-shelved the books.

Xander was joking with Giles about his choices of what sections to store away when he felt a stabbing pain hit him in the chest and he crumpled over.

“Xander! Xander, what’s wrong?” Giles caught him and lowered him to the floor, looking up only to see Angel collapsing to his knees beside them, clutching his head. “Angel, are you okay? What’s going on?”

Xander could feel an odd sort of calm come over him as he pushed the pain to the side and focused on what it was telling him. When Giles gasped he was sure his eyes had turned green, something they’d started doing once the hyena had been fully incorporated and was leading the show.

“They took Oz.” He looked at Angel, seeing the pain in his expression from what he was also getting through the link. “I don’t know how, as I thought he was still at practice, but somehow Buffy and Willow took him and are planning something. He’s in pain, but still okay so far.”

Giles helped him to his feet before offering a hand to Angel as well. “Do you know where they are?”

He considered for a while, feeling back through the link and getting a response from Oz. “They’re at Willow’s. Her parents are still out of town so they must figure that it’s safe.”

“They thought wrong,” Angel growled, vampire face in full view.

“Yes, they did,” Xander said, the abnormal calm still evident in his voice, “but they will learn the error of their ways when it comes to messing with our family.” He turned to Giles, “Do you still have the information from Hadrin’s contact? All the things needed for the spell she suggested?”

“Yes, I do,” he responded resignedly.

“Get them and meet us there. We’ll take care of Buffy and Willow.”

“Xander…”

“We can’t let this go without consequences, Giles, and I’m all for shoving them down their throats now. They were warned.” While still calm, his voice had a bit of a growl to it so he knew he was going to lose it if they didn’t leave soon. Giles must have realized it as well because he just sighed and waved them on.

“I understand, and I agree. Go, I’ll call Wesley and Faith and have them meet us there.”

Xander gave a short nod of his head then took off out the door, Angel close on his heels.

“You realize that I probably won’t be able to enter her house, I was dis-invited a while back.”

“But I wasn’t and Willow once told me that her house was my house and I could come over anytime I wanted.”

“You think that’s going to work?”

“I’ll make it work.”

It didn’t take long for them to get to Willow’s place. The house seemed empty, with no obvious signs of anyone being home, but Xander could strongly sense Oz within, so knew they were in the right place. He went up to the front door, pulled a key out of his pocket and quickly unlocked the door. He cautiously opened the door and stepped inside. Angel was pressed against an invisible barrier, unable to come in too.

“Angel, home is where the heart is and my heart is here. I welcome you to my home.”

He grinned weakly at the look of confusion Angel gave him as the barrier was suddenly gone. “Your heart lives here?”

“I didn’t say it lived here, just that it was here and I really don’t want to discuss it until later as I’m not convinced it’s not carry over from weird dreams about past lives yet. Besides, we have things to be doing right now, because if she doesn’t stop carving on Oz, I’m going to forget that I told Giles that I wouldn’t kill Willow.” Now he was definitely growling, but the pain coming from Oz was beginning to be a bit overwhelming, despite what he could tell Oz was blocking.

Angel simply nodded and followed him through the house and down to the basement entrance. Considering how open Xander knew the space was, there would be no element of surprise once the door was opened so they knew they had to get down the stairs and to wherever Willow had set up as fast as possible. Angel agreed to go first, having the most fighting experience and best chance at holding off Buffy, while Xander would go for Willow and Oz.

Buffy turned and threw a stake as they pushed open the door and raced down the stairs. She moved into position to intercept them, blocking Willow, but they didn’t stop. Angel was on her in an instant, having blocked the stake with hardly a thought. While he didn’t want to kill her, he wasn’t pulling his punches either and the fight got nasty quickly.

Xander ducked past them and saw Willow, knife in hand, with Oz tied down in front of her. Oz’s chest had been carved on and there were symbols painted on his forehead. He figured she must be aware they were there, but she was continuing with whatever she was casting. “Willow! You need to stop what you’re doing right now or you will not like the results you’re going to have.”

“No, I won’t. There’s something wrong with all of you! Oz has turned from me; Angel has left Buffy and you…! Look at you! You’re obviously possessed again! I’m just fixing things. I’m putting them back the way they should be!”

“Willow, you’re crazy and you don’t have the right to try to force people to be the way you want them to be.” He was slowly moving around the outside of the circle, looking for the best place to break through, hoping to distract her enough to mess up whatever she was trying to cast.

“I’m not crazy. You’re suddenly best buddies with my boyfriend and Angel. You’re hanging out with that slutty Faith and dating people like Cordelia. There’s something wrong with you. They’ve turned you against me.”

“No, you turned me against you. When you decided that I didn’t have the right to any free will. That I couldn’t be trusted to be your friend without a spell making me like you.” He slowly started smudging the outside line of the circle with his foot. They’d used paint when they’d done the one at Giles’ place, but the Rosenbergs would probably not be happy to have found that on the reclaimed hardwood floor they had installed when they’d renovated two years ago.

“Nothing I did would harm you if you were my friend.”

“And nothing you did would’ve been necessary if you’d been mine.” He suddenly was able to push his foot across the line meaning that the protection was no longer in affect. He stepped forward, startling her enough to make her shriek and take a step back. “I never thought I’d stop being your friend, Wills, but I don’t think I’ll be able to ever forgive you for this,” and he cold cocked her in the jaw knocking her to the floor and unconscious.

He heard a shriek cut off abruptly, but trusted Angel had things in hand as he turned to release Oz from his bonds.

“How are you feeling?”

“Peachy, she got a nice shiny silver knife just for me.” Oz’s voice was a bit husky.

“Xander! Angel!” Giles’ voice came from the top of the stairs and Xander could hear a couple sets of footsteps making their way down to where they are. He looked up to see that, like Willow, Buffy was unconscious on the floor and Angel appeared to be nursing a couple cuts and bruises. “Wesley, Faith, help Angel with Buffy. Xander, how’s Oz?”

“Cut up, but otherwise okay, I think. He’s conscious at least and has as much of a sense of humor as he ever does.” He grinned when the man in question hit him in the chest.

“Good.” Giles walked over to take a look at the spell set up. “Interesting… it almost looks like she was trying to do some form of mind and body control spell. The images painted on the forehead were to help control the mind and thoughts, while the… figures on the chest were to add control of the body…”

“That’s lovely, Giles, is it safe to move him? Willow didn’t do anything to him with all that, right?”

“Relax, Xander, Oz will be fine. You can help him get cleaned up while we deal with Willow.”

“I should…”

“You should help Oz and leave this to us.”

Xander stared at him for a minute, before looking down at Oz. Oz held his gaze firmly before saying, “I’d really like to get cleaned up now.”

“Okay, there’s a bathroom just down the hall.” He carefully helped Oz off the table he’d been tied to and wrapped an arm around his waist to help him move. The two carefully made their way down the hall as they ignored Giles ordering Wesley to help him set up for the magic binding spell they’d been given to use on Willow.

***~*~***

“You know, I’ve been looking all over for you. Giles is concerned, Wesley’s taken to quoting long passages from the Watcher Chronicles, Faith’s been throwing knives at the wall for the past day and a half, and Angel’s been brooding for the first time in weeks.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m concerned, but giving you space.”

“So you’re here because…?”

“You’ve had enough space. You’ve also started to brood and that needs to end. It’s not a character trait you need to be picking up from Angel.”

“Is there a better one I should be aiming for instead? He does it so well.”

Oz poked him. “He’d gotten much better until you started ignoring all of us.”

Xander sighed and rolled over on his bed to face Oz. He hadn’t heard the door and didn’t think his parents were even home, so he wasn’t quite sure how Oz had gotten in, unless lock picking was a skill he’d picked up… in which case Oz absolutely needed to teach him how to do it too.

“Sorry, I know it’s been a rough week for everyone. I didn’t mean to ditch you to deal with it alone.”

“Hey, I know it’s been worse for you as you actually have classes with Buffy and Willow. I’ve heard some of the stunts they’ve been pulling.”

While Willow’s magic had been bound, Buffy hadn’t escaped without punishment herself. As she’d agreed with, supported and helped in Willow’s spells against ‘innocents’ it had been decided to bind her abilities as well. Though used very rarely, there was a long term version of the potion used to conduct the Cruciamentum and Giles and Wesley had administered it to her. While it could be countered in the future if it was decided that she’d redeemed herself, that only worked within two years of it being administered. After that it became permanent.

To say that both girls had been furious to find out what had been done to them was to put it rather mildly. Neither could see the irony in how they thought it was fine to do things to others that controlled what they could do, but didn’t appreciate it being done to them.

Buffy had only tried to physically attack him once and was beyond angry when he was easily able to put her down now that she didn’t have the slayer expansion pack. That had led to them both being sent to the Principal’s office, but there were plenty of witnesses to her attack, so he got off with a warning while she was suspended for two days.

Willow was more subtle in her attacks, spreading rumors about the horrible things he’d done to her and Buffy and how he’d turned her boyfriend against her. That had only worked partially as he had Cordy on his side and she’d rallied her troops, otherwise known as the cheerleaders, and made sure they knew that Willow and Buffy were full of shit and not to be trusted. Larry had also hunted him down to get the real information and passed that along to his teammates. So it was rather amusing that all the jocks in the school were on his side when in the past they would’ve been the ones causing him trouble.

Still, it had been a painful week at school and he wasn’t sure he could deal with another couple of months of it until Graduation.

“I’ve been thinking about leaving. There’ve been too many painful things happen around here for me to want to stay. I just wanted to figure out a plan before I mentioned it to you or anyone else.”

Oz looked at him silently for a while after he finished speaking. “Okay, you want to tell me what you’ve come up with so far and I can tell you what Angel and I have discussed? What?” he said at Xander’s hurt look, “you weren’t talking to us so we talked to each other. That’s what family does, remember?”

Xander blushed, but nodded. “Yeah, I know. Next time just hit me or something.”

“I’m against abusive relationships,” he deadpanned, gesturing at Xander to start talking.

“Well, I’d spoken to Snyder after Buffy’s assault and got confirmation that I could test out early and Graduate now if I’d like. I haven’t officially finished classes, but if I can pass the final exams, they’ll call it done. I haven’t told him yes yet, but I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have to drop out to be able to be done. That goes for you too.

“I’ve also been saving money for a while for a trip after graduation, so that could be used to relocate, though it’s not a lot of money. I don’t really want to go too far away for now as Faith is the only slayer here anymore and she doesn’t have as much back up as Buffy did. If there is something major going down, I’d like to be able to get here fairly quickly to help out.”

“That makes sense. Were you planning on doing all this alone?”

“No!” Xander shot upright on the bed and turned to look at Oz who was looking down and picking at his thumbnail. “No, I wanted to have some ideas of what to do before starting the discussion. You and Angel are both older than me, but I feel like the pack leader, like I need to protect you guys as much as possible.”

“You know that’s not necessary, right? We’re here to help as well.” He waited for Xander to reply, but when he simply nodded, he went on. “Angel and I agree about leaving. He’d been thinking about it for a while because of the Buffy situation and not wanting to become Angelus again, but everything we’ve found out recently hasn’t changed his mind. I can’t say that I’d originally planned to move away, as I had been determined to stay with Willow, but I’ve sorta lost interest in following her around so I am not opposed to moving on.

“I don’t know that any of us can or would bury our heads in the sand and ignore all the crap going on out there, even more so now that we’re better equipped to handle it. Though we could probably use some training, or refresher training based on some of the memories I’ve seen. Angel was thinking LA. Not too far away to drive back if we’re needed, it has a number of options for work or school and the band can get a lot of gigs there. Angel’s also lived there before and has some ideas for places we could stay. So, what do you think?”

“You’ve got it all figured out.” He knew he sounded a bit hurt, but it felt like he hadn’t really been needed in this at all.

“Stop that,” Oz thumped him on the chest. “You’re starting to brood again. You were focusing on getting us out of here ASAP, while we didn’t figure we’d be able to leave so soon and were focusing on where best to head once we could. Different parts of the plan, but both necessary.”

“I thought you were anti-abuse? Fine, fine, I’m okay. Sorry. Moving on…” Xander smiled slightly when Oz rolled his eyes at him. He was a lot less reserved now than he had been, but it was still amusing to get him to obviously react to things.

“So, want to discuss the heart comment you made to Angel back when you two rode to my rescue last weekend?”

“Um… no?”

“Good, I was hoping you’d agree.” Okay, maybe on occasion he still would prefer the reserved, non-speaking version of Oz.

“I saw the first go ‘round of my soul. Couldn’t tell you when or where I was but you were there. And we were together. There were some horrible things going on, but… I was happy, content, complete. It’s the only life I’ve felt like that in. Every other life I’ve gone through, while I might have had a good life, there was always something missing. Even those you were with me in, because you were always with someone else.”

“You were as well though, it wasn’t just me.”

“You remember too then? The missing thing I felt at the end of each of those lives was the relationship we’d had originally. It wouldn’t have been accepted many times, and it obviously didn’t occur to me in most lives; in some it probably would’ve horrified me to be honest. I wasn’t always the most enlightened person.”

“I wasn’t either, some times. Obviously I didn’t know about the original life I’d led, but I must have remembered enough that I was looking for a red-head.” He smirked.

“You certain have hooked up with your share,” Xander grumbled. “But I can’t complain as I had a weird attraction to blondes and I don’t think you’ve been blond since then, and I certainly haven’t been a redhead.”

“So, are you against things in this life? It’s going to be a long one, hate for you to always feel like you’re missing something.”

Xander smiled, though he could feel the blush heating up his face. “I don’t think I’ve ever been against the idea in this life time, but I’ve not really had the chance to consider it all that much either. I also don’t want to build a relationship simply on the memory of a lifetime so far in the past I can’t even place it. But I would be willing to see if one can be built. As you said, this is going to be a long one, so no need to rush things.”

“I can live with that. So, what do you say we go rescue Angel from his brood and fill him in on our plans, then we can let the others know that we’ll be leaving soon. Angel still needs to do something with the mansion and you know Giles isn’t losing his free labor now that he finally found a larger house to move to with Wesley, Faith and all his books.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the April 2015 Rough Trade Immortality challenge – 20,000 words on the theme of immortality.
> 
> Un-Betaed


End file.
